Wartenn's Kingmaker

Founding of the Shrikehold

From the Journals of Darius Lodovka, Lord of the Rose

5

NOV/16

I cannot say that I expected that our exploration of the Greenbelt would end in us ruling a small nation. We made a bunch of deals that gave us resources in exchange for promises to build trade routes, buildings, or advance the goals of some of our sponsors while we grow as a country. Overall, I think we did very well. It has been 8 or 9 months now since we rose to power – and it has been a very busy and eventful time for the Shrikehold.

All of us have settled into our roles. Nymka is known to the public as the Guardian. Kargan is our general, Costin serves as our magister, Hamond Wylcey is our warden, and I serve as spymaster. Or Lord of the Rose as I call myself. The rose is elegant and attractive, but if you aren’t careful its thorns will stab the hell out of you. So I find it fitting.

We have two settlements established – Tralg’s Folly and Leveton. We don’t have a whole lot in Leveton right now – just some housing and a marketplace. We built a road to connect Leveton and Tralg’s Folly with Brevoy as we promised. In Tralg’s Folly, we have build quite a number of buildings, and our population has grown by leaps and bounds.

It has been quite a while since I wrote in my journal – partly because of my many activities. I’ve built a tavern from the ground up in Tralg’s Folly. I now have an innkeeper working for me that takes away from the work I have to do, but I love spending time there and swapping stories and having a few ales. It’s an excellent place to gather information.

There has been other excitement too. Some inquisitors of Old Deadeye came to stay with us for a couple of months to remove all of the goat statues in our realm. We had a visit by Count Arnovsky, and a month later his associate Arnold came to live in our town.

I recently sent my newly-trained spies on an easy scouting trip to Varnhold, and it ended poorly. Some of the spies were caught, but we avoided a major political scene. My entire life has been spent being in the spotlight and standing out. It’s pretty clear that I have some work to do and some skills to learn if I am to train a skilled group of spies.

We are currently exploring a fortress on our western border that is in the possession of some fey. We battled a quickling and found his piggy bank, which gave us the idea to call this place Svinevault. We also battled some kind of fey beasty and its assassin vine friend. We now go forth to explore the main keep.

I know that’s kind of a whirlwind tour of what we’ve been up to the past few months. I’ll try to do better at journaling in the future.